By Marina Malenic
CREECH AFB, Nev.–The Air Force has enough unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and support equipment to dramatically increase its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts over Iraq and Afghanistan as planned by the service’s leadership, officials overseeing drone operations here said this week.
Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said last month that his service is in the midst of building a robust, long-term ISR capability. Schwartz has revealed plans to expand Air Force UAS combat air patrols (CAPs) from 32 to 50 within the next two years (Defense Daily, Feb. 20).
A top Air Force drone operator said that goal can certainly be met using equipment the Air Force already has.
“I don’t see a real obstacle to meeting 50,” Col. John Montgomery, the vice commander of the 432d Air Force Air Expeditionary Wing, told reporters on March 18. “Just some time and space, and more people.”
Montgomery is responsible for operations and maintenance of the Air Force’s first Unmanned Aircraft Systems wing at Creech. There are 116 MQ-1 Predators and 27 MQ-9 Reapers in the Air Force fleet as of Feb. 23, according to the service’s UAS Task Force.
“It’s always been kind of a ragged edge,” Montgomery explained. “At first, when this whole thing started, it was kind of equipment-limited. And then the focus started going on equipment and it became kind of manning-limited.”
He noted that ground control systems had been in scarce supply early in the process, “but that need was eventually met.”
The shortfall now is in personnel. As a result, Montgomery said, training has been ramped up, and he is confident that 50 CAPs will be achieved in the two-year window discussed by Schwartz.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his deputies have repeatedly made the case for a new “balance” between conventional and irregular warfare systems in all the military services. The Air Force is particularly keen on building up its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities as all the military services prepare to rebalance their portfolios for irregular warfare in the upcoming budget (Defense Daily, Feb. 20).
The Air Force has completed its purchases of Predators but plans to expand its Reaper fleet to 319 aircraft, according to Capt. Al Bosco of the Air Force’s UAS Task Force at the Pentagon. Bosco told Defense Daily that UAS operations is the “quickest growing career field in the Air Force.”
“Our leadership in the Air Force, as well as the Pentagon leadership as a whole, has made clear that providing long-endurance, persistent ISR is one of our highest priorities,” Bosco said. “And we are gearing up and doing just that.”